Wind Power

Swedish company SeaTwirl says its floating vertical-axis wind turbines have what it takes to dramatically reduce the cost of deep offshore wind energy, and it's signed a deal with Westcon to build and deploy a commercial-scale 1-MW turbine in Norway.

We interviewed the core team at Norway's World Wide Wind to learn more about its floating, tilting, contra-rotating, double turbine design, which it says can unlock unprecedented scale, power and density to radically lower the cost of offshore wind.

Norway's World Wide Wind has a radically different take on offshore wind power. These floating, vertical-axis wind turbines feature two sets of blades, tuned to contra-rotate – and they promise more than double the output of today's biggest turbines.

Through its massive wind turbines and innovative offshore designs, GE continues sharpening its toolkit in a bid to built the future of sustainable energy, and a newly unveiled turbine blade shows how that can extend to the materials used.

New renewable energy projects in the Gobi and other deserts will raise China's world-leading wind and solar capacity by a further 70 percent. Some 450 GW of new capacity will cement China as both the biggest and fastest-growing renewable energy generator.

Shipping giant Maersk is teaming up with Danish energy company Ørsted to show off an offshore charging buoy that supplies power to ships moored overnight, with the first demonstration to take place at an offshore wind farm towards the end of the year.

NYC-based designer Joe Doucet doesn't see why renewable energy generation shouldn't actively make a home more beautiful, so he's putting together a series of "kinetic walls" using rotary wind turbines to achieve some hypnotic visual effects.

Fossil fuel tankers that transport oil, gas and coal across the seas play an important part in the global energy mix, but one Japanese startup is eyeing a future where these types of vessels carry a much cleaner load – energy from offshore wind farms.

Austrian boat-maker Silent Yachts has rolled out its latest solar electric catamaran. Helping things along are a dozen more solar panels than the previous model, and an innovative kite wing for extra propulsion.

Germany's Svevind has announced plans for a colossal green hydrogen project that will place some 45 gigawatts of wind and solar energy generation on the vast steppes of Kazakhstan to produce around three million tonnes of green hydrogen annually.

To maximize the exposure of wind turbines, blades are placed atop tall towers on the crests of hills or miles off shore. But a new study has shown how turbines behind hills could actually produce higher amounts of energy than those out in the open.

Norway's Wind Catching Systems has made a spectacular debut with a colossal floating wind turbine array it says can generate five times the annual energy of the world's biggest single turbines – while reducing costs to be immediately competitive.